![]() Wanda Ezell has been with me for six years-I met her at MTF. We have seven phenomenal learning coaches, which is what we call our teachers. How does the program actually work? Obviously, riders live all across the country. I don’t want ever to have a situation where parents are paying a good amount of money for a private education and then have it not fill their needs. It’s really important to me, because we’re not a free charter school. That means this is recognized by any college and any four-year university, as well as if they chose to go back to a regular high school. They now meet California’s high standards for graduation requirements. Finally, last Friday, we got the seal, and now we can put that on our transcripts. We had our final meeting in March, and we were recommended to the board. A lot of the motorcycle community is trying to do homeschooling on their own, but they’re not meeting standards. They came out here and interviewed many of our students and parents and some key people in the industry. We worked really diligently to prove the level of education we provide, proving that learning is taking place, proving the achievement of our students. But we wanted to be accredited, and it cost us a lot of money and time to do it. Plus, states change laws, which makes it difficult. A small group of students, like maybe 5 percent, would come to me and say, “Hey, I’m trying to get into a vocational school and they won’t accept me because I don’t have an accredited diploma.” I’ve had two or three disgruntled parents, and that’s not okay with me. We do surveys with parents and students and we can see learning is taking place. Yes, the last two years, we’ve been really satisfied with the curriculum, how students are engaged in learning, and the level of commitment we’re getting. It’s come a long way here-you have excited news with accreditation. That was better, but it still didn’t have enough options for us, so I created our own program and our own curriculum.Īndrea Leib started On Track to help young riders get an education while traveling the country. So I started my own group using a different vendor and kind of being the coach, helping these kids plan out how they were going to do school. Then, after spring nationals, when the kids would go back to school, they would be so confused and their grades would start dropping. So I started tutoring some riders, and I realized a lot of the kids that were traveling, the teachers would give them two to three times more work than the kids who were in school, hoping that would make up for it. I’m a teacher with a master’s degree, and I felt like nothing was happening. So for a year we experimented with a free charter school, and I was so unhappy. I was totally not into the idea of homeschooling. ![]() ![]() So Don says, “You’re going to have to start homeschooling our kids.” Ali was in eighth grade and Michael was in fifth grade. I didn’t realize we’d be in motor homes and breaking down in Tennessee and Oklahoma. I thought this was like tee-ball and we’d just play in the backyard. My husband, Don, was taking Michael all the way out to Florida to ride. I would imagine that wasn’t even in your thought process when this started! What was your main intention when this started? So education is moving in that direction and we’re at the forefront of it. And that’s not just in sports or motocross, that is nationwide. And by 2019, 50 percent of high-schoolers will be learning online. Right now we’re a private distance learning school, and we’re accredited. When it started, Jason, I really was calling it homeschool, but now I look back at it and I don’t even consider homeschooling to be anything of this nature. I know that you have the right intent here, which is integrating motocross and education, and that’s not as easy as some people think.Īndrea Leib: Right, absolutely. I think a lot of people have misconceptions about homeschooling in this sport, and I think you’re trying to right some of those wrongs. Racer X: It’s very interesting what you do. On Track recently became an AdanceED Accredited Online School, which is a really big deal. For the last decade, Andrea Leib has tried to fix that via her On Track private distance learning, which provides high-school educations for racers on the road. Think about all the high-school-aged rookies we’ve seen break through this season, and you’ll realize that the typical school schedule doesn’t mix well with racing. It doesn’t bring up thoughts of educational excellence, but it has become common for young racers looking to break through at the highest level of the sport.
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